Thursday, October 27, 2011

"Your mamma's so dumb she can program in Arduino!"

Interesting and slightly amusing letter from IEEE Spectrum Editor-in-Chief Susan Hassler:
Dear Members and Readers,

Please accept our sincere apologies for the headline in today's Tech Alert: "With the Arduino, Now Even Your Mom Can Program." The actual title of the article is "The Making of Arduino."

I'm an IEEE member, and a mom, and the headline was inexcusable, a lazy, sexist cliché that should have never seen the light of day. Today we are instituting an additional headline review process that will apply to all future Tech Alerts so that such insipid and offensive headlines never find their way into your in-box.

Spectrum's insistence on editorial excellence applies to all its products, including e-mail alerts. Thank you for bringing this error to our attention. If you have any additional comments or recommendations, do not hesitate to contact me or other members of the editorial staff.

Sincerely yours,

Susan Hassler
Editor in Chief
IEEE Spectrum
[ the article that caused the fuss: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-making-of-arduino ]